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Cowboy Cash Mob

Alex Newman, Project Coordinator

The Laramie Area Chamber of Commerce has launched the Cowboy Cash Mob, a promotion to benefit small retail goods and services businesses in Laramie. Cowboy Cash Mob is a variation of the recent “flash mob” phenomena that features large groups of performers appearing unannounced at large public venues, usually a shopping mall, and entertaining surrounding crowds with performances in song or dance.

The objective of the Cowboy Cash Mob is to organize dozens of customers to patronize a single store at the same hour of a selected day with the intention of steering hundreds of dollars in sales to the chosen merchant.

The way this will work is that at each monthly board of directors meeting the name of a business will be drawn and a Cowboy Cash Mob planned for a date and time during the following few weeks. From there, all board members will be asked to email 10 to 20 of their coworkers, or friends and acquaintances to join us at the Cowboy Cash Mob at the appointed time and day. We will give a heads-up to some small businesses so they can schedule enough staff and have adequate products for what we hope will be huge crowds of customers, compared to what is normal for the business. The hope is that the emailed invitations will be passed forward, resulting in an escalating number of customers.

If you would like to be notified of when and where to meet for our first Cowboy Cash Mob, contact the Chamber and we will make sure that you are on the invite list. No minimum purchase amount will be suggested by the chamber. People who agree to “mob” a selected business will be encouraged to spend what fits their budget. If a “mobster” cannot spend any money at the appointed time and place, we still encourage them to show up in support of the business being mobbed.

We believe that Cowboy Cash Mobs will obviously be great for the businesses selected. We also believe that this will be a great way for participating chamber members to network, and to enjoy time socializing with other members and making new friends. Many of these events should result in the business targeted earning enough during the Cowboy Cash Mob to more than cover their annual membership in the chamber of commerce. That is quite a benefit to membership. The chamber will start with “mobbing” the businesses of chamber members only.

The first Cowboy Cash Mob was held at Martindale’s Western Store. If you missed the ‘mobbing’ catch up on all the fun below.

Bonnie Miller chats with Joan Martindale during the Cowboy Cash Mob at Martindale’s Western Store

Fellow ‘Cash Mobbers’ wait in line to pay for their Cowboy Cash Mob purchases

J.T. Walsh, Real Estate 1

The 2nd Cowboy Cash Mob was held at El Conquistador Restaurant, April 25, 2012. It is owned and operated by the Frausto Family. There were 119 Cash Mobbers present.

Bob, Terri & Brian Frausto, El Conquistador

Cowboy Cash Mobbers enjoying dinner at El Conquistador

The following is a list of the all the Cowboy Cash Mobs that were held during the 2012 year. We are excited to have all of them in our Cowboy Cash Mob history and hope that they too enjoyed our promotion.

Martindale’s Western Store: On March 28, 2012, Joan Martindale let chamber staff, board members and all invited into her store to test out this new promotion. She was the first business the chamber approached about hold this promotion and helped give this new idea a great start.

El Conquistador: The Frausto Family opened their doors to the CCM crowd in April 2012 and saw over 100 diners during their dinner special. The mob numbers grew considerably that night and the attendees were not disappointed at. El Conquistador pulled out all the stops for this cash mob and because of that they saw a wonderful turn out.

Corona Village: Ponciano Villasenor, owner of Corona Village, offered an outstanding lunch special to all Cowboy Cash Mobbers in June 2012. Due to the amazing deal offered, there were 140 people at the lunch cash mob.

The Copper Kettle: Cyndi Martin opened The Copper Kettle in 2005 and since then she has offered the Laramie Community with Gourmet Kitchen Collections for any occasion and now she has been one of our proud CCM hosts. Cyndi’s cash mob was held at the very beginning of August 2012. 40 people attended and purchased something.

Papa Murphy’s Take-n-Bake Pizza: Over 60 coupons were redeemed at this cash mob making it one of the most successful CCM’s for 2012. It was considered a success because it was one of our first “fast food” type services we had mobbed. Carol Schwartz and her staff were great to work with.

Bella Home Boutique & Bakery: Stephanie Goodrich was kind enough to offer cupcake 4 packs and 25% off the entire store and bakery during her cash mob. All Mobbers left with tasty cupcakes for dessert!

Java Java Espresso: Kim Shaver, owner of Java Java offered a great deal of .50¢ off your cup of gourmet coffee but sadly this was the lowest turnout for a Cowboy Cash Mob that we had seen throughout the life of the promotion. The Chamber hopes to rectify this downfall by making sure it never happens again and encourages all coffee lovers to stop by Java Java Espresso.

We invite everyone to start joining the LACC Staff and Board Members at all of the Cowboy Cash Mob events for 2013. Contact the LACC directly for more information at (307) -745-7339 or at chamberofcommerce@laramie.org.